


in sickness/in health

by sara_wolfe



Category: Good Omens (TV), Good Omens - Neil Gaiman & Terry Pratchett
Genre: Fluff, Gen, Sick Crowley (Good Omens), Sickfic
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-08-05
Updated: 2020-08-05
Packaged: 2021-03-06 00:28:31
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,741
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25724386
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sara_wolfe/pseuds/sara_wolfe
Summary: When Crowley gets sick, Aziraphale's there to take care of him.
Relationships: Aziraphale & Crowley (Good Omens)
Comments: 3
Kudos: 133
Collections: Fandom Trumps Hate 2020





	in sickness/in health

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Aquatigermice](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Aquatigermice/gifts).



> for **Aquatigermice**

“Hell is sending you _where_?”

“Russia.” Crowley shuddered dramatically, spitting the word out like it physically pained him. “Administration’s idea of a punishment, after that botched job in Costa Rica.”

Aziraphale winced. Costa Rica was supposed to have been his, according to the Arrangement, only he’d been in Greece for a festival that he hadn’t wanted to miss, and he’d begged Crowley to go in his stead, and for all of Crowley’s claims that his head office never checked in on him, trust this to be the one time they actually did. Crowley was still rather mum about the whole disaster; all he would tell Aziraphale was that things hadn’t gone according to plan and that Hell was rather upset with him because of it.

“How long will you be gone?” Aziraphale asked, hoping the answer wasn’t too long. No matter what had happened, Hell couldn’t truly be too angry with Crowley, could they?

Crowley scowled, a dark shadow falling over his face. “Six months,” he groused. “Six lousy months in that miserable Arctic hellhole.”

“Well, look on the bright side,” Aziraphale offered. “Hell can’t be too mad at you if it’s only six months. After all, six months is nothing.”

* * *

Crowley was gone for considerably longer than six months. 

By the time Aziraphale saw him again, it was almost a decade later. And it was purely by accident. He was taking a walk through St. James Park, enjoying the gentle snowfall coming down, when he very abruptly tripped over something sprawled across the path in front of him. Aziraphale went down hard, not enough time to catch himself, and came up sputtering and wiping snow off his face. 

For a moment he couldn’t figure out what he’d stumbled over, but then he saw the lump half-buried by the snow on the path and rapidly disappearing under the heavy flakes that continued to fall. The lump was oddly shaped, and when Aziraphale used a miracle to clear the snow away, he found himself staring down at an enormous black snake. A black snake with very familiar golden eyes. 

“Crowley?” Aziraphale ventured, hesitantly. Just in case there was some other human-sized snake roaming around London.

The snake blinked slowly, languidly up at him. Regular snakes couldn’t blink, but Crowley didn’t really care about little details like that. But blinking was all Crowley did, with no other attempt at movement, and Aziraphale started to get worried. 

“Crowley, are you all right?”

Crowley’s only response was to slump even further into the snowbank, eyes fluttering shut and refusing to open again, no matter how much Aziraphale pestered him. This was bad; this was very, very bad. 

Stooping down, Aziraphale bundled the unresisting demon into his arms. A small miracle as he straightened up ensured that none of the humans in the park would see his unusual burden, and then he started the trek back to the bookshop. Halfway there, though, he changed his mind and turned in the direction of Crowley’s flat. Crowley would almost certainly feel more comfortable in his own space, and his flat would have the things Aziraphale needed to take care of him, like medical supplies, or a bedroom. Amenities he wasn’t sure had ever existed in the bookshop, if he was being honest. 

Aziraphale didn’t want to risk teleporting them both to Crowley’s flat; it was a hard enough shock on the system under the best of circumstances, and he wasn’t sure how Crowley’s obviously-compromised system would handle it now. But, he didn’t hesitate to use another miracle to kind of bend the ground under his feet, his steps covering miles rather than mere inches. They reached Crowley’s flat in just a couple of minutes, and then Aziraphale used another miracle to get them upstairs without anyone seeing them. 

His first stop was the bathroom. He’d been to Crowley’s flat enough to know that he owned a decadently-immense bathtub, and he couldn’t think of a better place to put several hundred kilos of barely-responsive snake demon. Another miracle to appropriately-enlarge the size of the tub - the accounting department in Heaven was _not_ going to be happy with him this billing cycle - and he carefully deposited Crowley into the gently-warmed bathtub. 

A quick trip back to the bookshop to grab some books on snake husbandry, and then he was back. Aziraphale summoned a chair into the corner of the bathroom and settled down to read. He knew, at minimum, that sick snakes needed humidity, and he had the temperature and humidity of the bathroom increasing slowly enough to hopefully not send Crowley into shock. But, he didn’t know the more detailed aspects of how to care for snakes, and he wanted to be prepared in case Crowley was planning on staying as a snake for a while. 

As he usually did when he started reading, Aziraphale soon got lost in his books. He didn’t know how much time had passed when he suddenly realized that the bathroom felt different, and he looked up from his book to see a human-shaped Crowley sprawled out in the bathtub, arms and legs dangling at frankly ridiculous angles over the edges of the bathtub. 

Setting his book aside, Aziraphale crossed the room to check on Crowley. He was either unconscious or asleep, Aziraphale couldn’t tell which, and his skin was painfully hot to the touch. He didn’t even stir when Aziraphale touched his cheek. Demons and angels weren’t immune to getting sick, but it took a lot to affect them - like perhaps a decade in a freezing climate when one was distinctly cold-blooded. 

“I’m sorry,” Aziraphale murmured, guilt lancing through him. “If I’d never asked you to cover for me in Costa Rica-”

But guilt was the last thing Crowley needed from him, right now. What Crowley needed was for Aziraphale to find a way to fix this. 

For not the first time, he found himself wishing desperately that he could simply heal Crowley like he could a human. Unfortunately demons were resistant to angelic healing magic; part of their punishment in the Fall. So Aziraphale was confined to the human healing arts, such as they were. 

He could hear an audible rattling sound as Crowley breathed, much clearer as a human than when he’d been a snake. In response, Aziraphale increased the humidity in the room; Crowley would be able to handle it better as a human, now, and hopefully he would adjust more easily if he slipped back into snake form. He also summoned the blanket from Crowley’s bed, tucking it carefully around Crowley and making sure to cover him completely from the neck down. Crowley needed as much warmth as he could get. 

Then, Aziraphale settled back down to wait. 

Minutes stretched to hours stretched to days, and still Aziraphale kept his watchful vigil. Crowley shifted several times between human and snake, regained a bleary sort of consciousness occasionally for a few minutes at a time. The first time he opened his eyes, it was clear that he didn’t know where he was or who he was with, but the second time earned Aziraphale a small, sleepy smile before he fell back asleep. 

When Crowley was breathing easier, Aziraphale lifted him out of the tub and carried him into the bedroom. Crowley would be much more comfortable there, than in the hard tub. But the room was so dark, so depressing, and after a moment, Aziraphale simply moved the entire bed into Crowley’s room full of plants. The sunshine coming in through the windows would do him a world of good, and surely it would help him to be surrounded by the plants he loved so dearly. 

Crowley slept more deeply among his plants, the sun returning a much-needed color to his too-pale skin. Slowly, his fever began to abate. And Aziraphale settled down to wait.

* * *

Crowley woke feeling warm, and comfortable, and - and _safe_. He couldn’t remember the last time he felt safe. 

Opening his eyes, he looked around to see the familiar surroundings of his sun room - more than a bit of a surprise, since the last place he remembered being was Russia’s frozen tundra. He was lying in his bed - which was supposed to be in his bedroom, but he figured that he wasn’t too bothered by it, since it was at least still in the flat - bundled under what seemed to be every blanket he owned, and more than a few that he was sure he’d never seen before. 

He wanted to be confused by it all, but frankly it felt so good to just be warm again that he decided that he didn’t really care. Maybe he’d somehow gotten back home, even through the block Hell had put on most of his powers. Maybe he was still in Russia, vividly hallucinating while he slowly froze into a block of ice. Either way, he felt so good at the moment that he was willing to let it go on for a little while longer. 

He closed his eyes and let himself drift, listening to the whisper of the plants as their leaves rustled in the breeze coming in from the open window. He was warm, snuggled under the blankets and luxuriating in the sunshine streaming into the room. If this was a dream - as he was rapidly starting to suspect - then it was one of the more pleasant dreams he’d had in a long while, and he intended to savor it. 

He didn’t even startle at the sound of footsteps outside the door, the sound of Aziraphale’s voice coming into the room. He was dreaming; of course he would dream of his angel. Opening his eyes, he smiled sleepily up at Aziraphale, basking in the warmth of the smile he got in return. 

“Crowley, you’re awake!” Aziraphale sounded positively delighted to see him - yet more proof that Crowley was dreaming. 

“That’s funny,” he said, as Aziraphale came closer. 

“What is, my dear?”

“Being awake in a dream,” Crowley told him. “Or sleeping in a dream.” He frowned, confused. “Would I know that I was sleeping in a dream?”

“My dear.” There was an affectionate smile on Aziraphale’s face as he perched on the edge of the bed beside Crowley. “You’re not dreaming, my dear.”

Crowley blinked up at him, slowly. “I’m not?”

“You are most certainly awake,” Aziraphale said, reassuringly. 

“And you’re really here?” Crowley ventured. 

Aziraphale beamed down at him. “How could I be anywhere else?”


End file.
